


Contingencies

by PeniG



Series: Akashic Records [20]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Other, why Aziraphale's PC is so old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: Now that the antichrist is safely delivered and off to his new home, it's party time in Hell!Crowley and Aziraphale believe in their Plan, but they are also considering how to protect each other if everything ultimately goes pear-shaped.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Akashic Records [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1446628
Comments: 27
Kudos: 234





	Contingencies

**Author's Note:**

> Re: Music in Hell  
> If you're too young to know about backmasking, go do a search on it. This stuff is wild.  
> "Stairway to Heaven" is widely regarded as the greatest rock song of all time. "You Light Up My Life" is a sappy love song which inexplicably took over the airwaves late in the 70s and was the #1 Song of the Decade according to Casey Casem's end-of-decade countdown, even though "Stairway to Heaven" is also from that decade. The hand of the Evil One is all too apparent there.  
> "Disco Duck" is a disco song which features a Donald Duck impersonator. "Love Rollercoaster" was rumored to have been introduced as evidence in a murder trial because the victim's scream was accidentally recorded on it. "The Bump" is the music for a dance which involved repeatedly hitting your partner's hips and buttocks with your own. None of this is made up. I lived through it.  
> "Disturbia" and "Viva la Vida" are both songs from 2008, the year of the antichrist's birth, with plausibly hellish overtones. I figure Crowley, despite the Bentley's proclivities, is more up on current pop music in any given year than the DJs of Hell are.  
> Rated T for swearing and alcohol. Author has never been drunk or attended this sort of party. It probably shows.

Crowley was late to the party.

This was in no way unusual. Dagon wasn’t sure whether Crowley disliked parties, or routinely got to go to much better ones on Earth, or was deliberately late as part of his “too cool for Hell” persona, and by the time he slithered into the party room she was too drunk to care much. She staggered over, put one arm around his neck, and thrust a glass into his hand. “Here’s the demon of the hour! Drink this!”

Crowley gave under her weight, but (being sober) remained upright, and accepted the glass without enthusiasm. “Not that I don’t trust you, oh Master of Torments, but what the fuck is it?”

She batted her eyelids at him. (She did not currently have eyelashes, having lost them all bobbing for ducks, a game at which she was reigning champion, but which could be hard on the face.) “That’d be cheating. You have to guess!”

“Do I?” He regarded the flames dancing on the surface with skepticism that would have been pardonable, had anything been pardonable here. “Is there a prize?”

“If you guess all the ingredients before you finish the drink you don’t have to finish it.”

“I see. And does anybody know what’s in it?”

“Beelzebub wrote it down. C’mon.” She tugged him through the writhing crowd of dancing demons, past the DJ booth where one of Legion’s iterations played “Stairway to Heaven” backwards on one turntable, and “You Light Up My Life” frontwards on the other, to the corner where Beelzebub perched on a throne made of those who had passed out trying to win zzir game. Hastur was acting as zzir footstool. Ligur still stood, sort of. “Here he is!”

“About time,” said Beelzebub.

“Nobody told me there’d be a party. Not Hastur, not Ligur, not Himself when he gave me my instructions - nobody. I’m a busy demon and this job, great honor though it is, wasn’t in my plans for the night.”

“No radio, no TV, where the fuck were you?”

“A very expensive live music venue, full of the Leaders of Tomorrow, all ready to be tempted into doing things they’ll regret for decades to come.”

“Exzzept that there’zz only one more decade to come,” Beelzebub pointed out.

Crowley shrugged. “Sounds like a reason to pick up the pace, to me. Go out with a bang. Anyway, I’ve been tempting solidly since I dropped off the, um, you know.”

“Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of this World, and Lord of Darkness,” Dagon said helpfully. “All the more reason to kick back and enjoy yourself now! Drink up!”

“You know I’m not much of a drinker,” said Crowley, flicking his tongue over the glass and narrowly avoiding getting flicked back by a flame. “Has anybody guessed right yet?”

Beelzebub grinned at him. “Nope.”

“I got three ingredients,” bragged Ligur. “She won’t tell me which ones. And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Of course not, why should you? That’s brandy burning on top, for one - that cheap stuff they sell around Christmas to burn on plum pudding. And ghost pepper, can’t miss that once it’s scorched.”

“ _Ghoost pepper!_ ” Dagon howled. “I thought it was _cayenne!_ ”

“That’s what you get for playing the odds instead of trusting your senses. Is extinguishing the brandy allowed?”

“No,” said Beelzebub. “Drink it already.”

“Don’t rush me. No taste buds to speak of, if I’m to have a fighting chance I’ve got to get the scents first. Grape Kool-Aid, that’s pretty basic. Everclear. Tabasco.” He held the glass up so that the strobing fluorescent light shone through it and peered. “Mayonnaise mixed with...Heinz 57. Spritz of, hmm, lemon juice?” His tongue flicked again. “Nope, that’s citron. Bet you fooled a lot of folks with that one. Rum. Gin.” He finally brought the rim of the glass to his mouth, inhaled some flame, snapped his teeth, and grinned. “And oregano. How’d I do?”

Beelzebub hurled an empty two-liter everclear bottle at him. He dodged. “No fair! Everybody elze was already three zheets to the wind when they ztarted playing.”

“Too late now.” He set the glass on the edge of the bar and went behind it to poke through the available bottles. The Legion iteration who was supposed to be tending lay drooling against the wall. The music changed to the Macarena, to whoops of delight on the dance floor. “You should’ve remembered who invented cocktails.”

“I’m not as drunk as _that_ ,” protested Dagon. “That was our demon in New York! I should tell him you tried to steal his thunder.”

“Oh, now, don’t be a spoilsport. I never claimed a thing. Exactly. How about I make you a proper martini for a bribe to keep silent?” He produced a bottle of gin and a jar of olives which she was positive had been eyeballs last time she’d seen it.

“Oh, all right.” Dagon leaned against the bar.

“I need more everclear!” Beelzebub propped an elbow on the slowworm topping the body of the demon currently serving as a throne arm, and it made a sleepy discomfited noise.

“Prairie Oyster!” Ligur barked. “One for me and one for Hastur!”

“What does Hastur need one for? He’s passed out.”

“He said he’d match me drink for drink and I’m blessed if I don’t hold him to it. Don’t worry, I gotta funnel.”

So the Serpent of Eden tended bar at what was, technically, his own party, miracling up any ingredients the bar lacked. When Legion played “Disco Duck” he danced with Dagon, when he played “Love Rollercoaster” he danced with Beelzebub, when he played “The Bump” he danced with Ligur, and when the final iteration of Legion passed out he was still sober enough to put a stack of records on, all of which turned out to be “Disturbia,” though every third one played backwards. Beelzebub found this hilarious; even more so when Ligur threatened to tear his own ears off.

“Great party,” said Crowley, eventually. “I don’t remember ever seeing so many demons in such a carefree mood.”

“Won’t be long before we zzee the lazzt of thizz place,” said Beelzebub. “Z’enough to cheer up the damned.”

Crowley, draped over a barstool that hadn’t been there when he came in, sipped a whiskey sour he’d been nursing for at least an hour. “Point. Wonder what the new place’ll be like.”

“What, you don’t remember it?” Dagon asked, looking up from drawing a mustache and spectacles on the ex-bartending Legion with a writing implement called a Sharpie Crowley’d given her. “Wide open spaces? Light? Views?”

“Yeah, yeah, but that was a long time ago and I for one never felt much urge to go back. I mean, Heaven was heavenly and all that, but when you came right down to it - a bit dull, really.”

“That’zz because the wrong lot wazz in charge,” said Beelzebub. “We’ll make a few differenzez in the decor. Nizze dark wallzz. Ztuff to draw bugzz.”

“M’gonna haff a, a security station.” Ligur didn’t look up from the delicate task of pouring a mixture of lime juice, vodka, and baking soda down the funnel in Hastur’s mouth. “Big rank of monitors connecting to every room down here. Watch how Michael and that lot handle it. And an intercom, so whenever they get too comfy I can, I can, _growwwwl_ menacingly in their ears.”

“Assuming any survive. Isn’t the point to get rid of them?”

Beelzebub shrugged. “The common or garden angelz, zhure. Those Archangel bazztardzz? That actually threw uzz out? Can’t make ‘em zuffer if they don’t exzzizt.” She tilted her head back and guzzled more everclear. “I’m getting a corner offize. With windowzz. Anna, anna door lock.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “It iz promizzed unto me. Maybe a minibar, too.”

“I wonder what the booze is like up there,” said Crowley. “All Earth’s liquor’s going up in smoke with the rest of the place.” He passed another martini to Dagon. 

She fished out the olive with her Sharpie and ate it. “Oh, there’ll be liquor. Recreational drugs, too. But what I’m gonna have, is, is, a computer that never breaks down. Never loses internet. And, and a li-librrr-liberry.” That didn’t sound right. “You know. Those book places. I read that one you gave me so off, often, s’coming apart. I need new books.”

“Where you going to get ‘em? All Earth’s books’re going boom with the rest of the place. I doubt we’ll be taking over any big publishing concerns when we storm Heaven. And demons can’t create. I tried to write a poem once - needed one to tempt somebody with - it’s _hard_. You wouldn’t believe, how hard that is to do. Rhymes and meters and metaphors, all kinds of fiddly bits you don’t notice reading ‘em. Wound up having to hire a human.”

“Take some damned writers with us, lock ‘em in a room, tell ‘em to get to work.” Still, Dagon felt uneasy. She’d tried several times to talk to Oscar Wilde since he arrived, and he’d said cutting things and gone back to working on making his torture cell properly aesthetic. She wasn’t sure people like him _could_ be forced to write. She burped and knocked back the martini, holding the glass out for a refill. Crowley made damn good martinis, though her tongue was growing too numb to appreciate them to their maximum potential. “Be, besides, we won’t be targeting li, li, bookshops! We can save some books from Earth.”

“Why’re you being such a downer today, Crawly?” Ligur asked.

Crowley surged off the barstool and took Ligur by the scruff of the neck. “ _Crow_ ley! It’s been _Crow_ ley for two thoussand yearss and I’m ssick to death of you pretending you can’t remember it!”

“Who says I’m pretending?” Ligur sneered, reaching for his cursed knife, and jabbing a swizzle stick into Crowley’s ribs. “What the _fuck_? _What’d you do to my knife?_ ”

“What, you thought I wanted to dancce with you? Get a clue! You can have your knife back when you’re ssober enough to wave it around ressponssibly.” Crowley smiled wide enough to show his extended fangs, tipped with shining drops of venom. Or possibly whiskey. “Now. What’s my name?”

Without Hastur to act as a damage sponge, or his dreaded knife, Hell’s Executioner was not as formidable as he liked to pretend, and the Serpent of Eden was always a dark horse. Even Dagon, who knew better than most how much more likely he was to bluff than to deal damage, felt a cold touch in her spine, wondering what his eyes were like behind the sunglasses. She began, quietly, to sober up. Ligur rolled his eyes. “Fine, _Crow_ ley. Why are you being such a downer today? It’s _your_ damned party.”

Crowley set him down on Hastur’s chest and returned to the bar for a cocktail napkin, fangs retracted, every inch Mr. Slick again. “Naw, it’s the antichrist’s party, innit?” He wiped his fingers on the napkin. “I’m just the guy that’s supposed to make sure he’s educated properly. Which is worrying, when you think about it. I mean - what kind of world am I educating him _for_? That’s not up to me. That’s up to him. And his dad.”

“So you educate him for the world you want,” said Dagon. “And if _we_ want a new world with books and minibars, maybe we ought to start sucking up to you now, is that what you’re getting at?”

Crowley shrugged. “Mm, wouldn’t hurt. But we all know, if the kid tries to bring over anything his dad doesn’t want, it’s not coming over. So I might try to transfer a bauble or two for myself, but I’ll decide how to live in post-Armageddon when I see what I’ve got to work with.”

“Baublezz? _We_ zzaid what _we_ want. What d’ _you_ want?”

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t need anybody to say what they want. I can see it. Can’t you?”

Beelzebub shook her head. “M’waaaay too zozzled.”

Ligur scowled, sliding off Hastur. 

Dagon giggled. “I’m admin, not a tempter, and I’m nearly want-blind, but I bet I know what bauble you have in mind. _You’re_ hoping you can keep Mr. Fusswings!”

Crowley inclined his head and handed her a fresh martini. 

“Who?” Beelzebub asked.

“Crowley’s adversary.” Dagon had lost her Sharpie. She fished out the olive with a talon. “Most hilarious little angel you ever saw. Crowley’s been amusing himself with him for - oh, I don’t know how long. Could to look it up.”

“Long enough to have a plan for every pretty little hair on his fluffy little head,” said Crowley. “Trickssky, sstubborn bugger as he is, no way he’ll jusst give up when his sside loses. He’ll keep right on trucking, trying to find ssome way to thwart me. _Very_ politely! It’ll be the funniesst show in town. Only show in town, if we don't take care.”

“C’mon, you don’t seriously think you’ll get a whole pet angel to torment all yourself?” Ligur sneered, from the safety of the other side of Beelzebub’s throne.

“Eh, probably not, but it sseems like a ssmall enough thing to assk for, doesn’t it? Not gonna get me in any trouble, anyhow. I don’t think the Big Guy’ss gonna like it if we go assking for the moon.”

“Maybe we could split him,” suggested Dagon. “Mister Fusswings, I mean. Not the Big Guy. He could take care of my library.”

“Oh! That’ss a good idea! If we put ssome kind of protection bubble over his bookshop so it ssurvivess the War, it could be the core of your collection. And he’d feel obliged to be grateful to uss for ssaving his books - that’d be a ssweet twisst of the knife.” Crowley clinked glasses with her. “But don’t you go playing with him without conssulting me first. I’ve got _plans_. I’m positive there’s a good millennium of fun in him.”

Beelzebub burped. “That’z all well and fine, but what iz it you _want_? What’z our young mazter to be educated into making uz live with?”

“Not up to me,” Crowley topped up his own drink for the first time since he’d mixed it. Something strange happened to his face, and his voice changed subtly. “I’ve gone ssix thousand years not playing Hell’s politicss, and I’m not about to sstart now. You’ll know what my true heart’s wish is, the day I ssee my chance to reach out and _take_ it. Not before. I’m not giving any of _you_ lot a chance to block me.”

Dagon blinked at this stranger, grim and determined, committed to something more than his own skin; somebody dangerous beyond the calculable threats of influence, venom, strategy, and power. She blinked again, and he was merely Crowley, turning with easy grace and a sardonic smile to a lesser tempter rolling up to the bar demanding a Bloody Mary with real blood. 

She decided to sober up properly this time, and knock off the booze. Obviously Crowley had meant to spook them with that momentary spiritual shapeshift, but it could only be a new set of steps in his eternal tapdance, part and parcel of the mercurial skillset that had kept his skin whole on Earth for six millennia and landed him the job of Antichrist Overseer. Hell had plenty of good tempters, but Crowley was the only one who could be expected to pass unquestioned among humans, day in and day out, indefinitely, manipulating the kid’s environment, adjusting instantly to whatever curveballs the humans threw at him. Sure, this gave him the potential to exert undue influence; to set things up to favor himself in the Brave New World after Hell’s victory. Anybody would try that one on. It couldn’t be helped. But in the end, he was only Crowley, whose ambitions centered around being cleverer than anybody else, avoiding pain, and not working too hard. A bluffer, an opportunist, and a loner, not a plotter.

Not that she wouldn’t be going over his next eleven years of reports with a fine tooth comb. If she spotted a single sign of that hinted-at, savage true heart’s wish, she’d be all over it. But odds were good that, when the time came, a toy angel and a quiet life would satisfy him. 

Suddenly, instead of the next iteration of “Disturbia,” the DJ booth blasted “Viva la Vida,” and those demons who were still on their feet cheered and danced with renewed vigor. Beelzebub hurled the last everclear empty at the light fixture and fell back unconscious. Ligur clutched his stomach and vomited on the floor. Dagon appropriated the jar of olives and downed them in one mouthful. “I’m calling it a night,” she said. “Don’t think you don’t have to get your reports in on time still.”

“I will never think that,” Crowley assured her.

By the time she picked her way to the door, “Viva la Vida” ended, and “Disturbia” started playing again. She made her way through the halls of Hell listening to the screams of the damned and the roll of Crowley’s laughter.

\---  
Aziraphale booted up his computer. Crowley liked to laugh at it, because it still ran DOS and took floppy disks, but Aziraphale liked to hear Crowley laugh. He didn’t see the point in “upgrading” every time some American company decided it wanted to put out a new product, which would only have to be taught to do things his way, and would become obsolete about the time he got it working to his satisfaction. On those rare occasions when he wanted to do something new - like search for books all over the world through the internet - all he had to do was add a new piece or write a new program. Expanding memory was no harder than expanding space in the bookshop, and if anything went wrong he could heal the machine’s hardware as easily as he could heal a book or a coat. 

Though he knew the doors were closed and locked, that the wards were all set, and the blinds were down, he glanced around before opening the encrypted file buried among his tax records. By now it was sizable, and took its time about opening. He spent that time in gathering up all his anxieties into a neat ball and tucking them away where they wouldn’t bother him much, and in enjoying the memory sensation of Crowley’s hand shaking his on the new Arrangement. It was the first time they’d touched each other since effective AIDS treatments came along; and it would have to be the last for a, for a not _particularly_ long time. Eleven years. They’d gone without even seeing each other for more than eleven years at a stretch, plenty of times. But now they would be seeing each other, not constantly, but frequently, working more closely than they had since, well, since _ever_ , and would have to be fantastically careful because of that. 

Aziraphale was the weak link there, and he knew it. Crowley had demonstrated for millennia exactly how trustworthy he was on this subject, reserving all his recklessness for his own well-being. When it came to observing the boundaries his angel set, he was conscientiousness personified. No, Aziraphale was the one who got skin hungry, who got _greedy_ , who let himself get upset and reach out for comforts he knew to be dangerous, but which Crowley would never withhold. For the next eleven years, there must be _none_ of that.

The plan would work. Of course it would. It was Crowley’s plan, and he was brilliant; and Aziraphale would be there every step of the way to correct course when things got erratic; and the Antichrist would grow up to be a perfectly normal boy and refuse his destiny and everything would be _fine_. Absolutely fine. Possibly _better_ than fine. The thing about the future was, you never knew when or how things would get better.

And if, by some unhappy chance, probably a result of some failing of Aziraphale’s, the plan _didn’t_ work, Crowley at least would _still_ be fine. The original secret plan, first conceived during the wave of changes prompted by the Resurrection, would be in place. For a safety net.

The file finished opening; a long column of symbols and alphanumerics which would be meaningless to anyone not familiar with the search protocols of the Akashic Records. Protocols he’d had a hand in designing, though no doubt they were far more sophisticated these days. His old workmates Liriel and Sabriel, he had no, well, _very little_ , doubt, would help him with any refinements he needed to make. The cursor blinked at the end of the top line, title and caveat: _The ones I know about!_ He hit Enter to insert a new line, and input the terms that call up events from the time they’d met the previous day to the time they’d shaken on the deal, and present them for review, visual and audio and emotion and aura all right there for anyone to see.

Then he scrolled down, idly; not that he needed reassuring, but, but the file _was_ reassuring, all the same. There were so many items to choose from. More than he would ever be able to present to anyone; but plenty to cherrypick among, when the opportunity came, when everything was settled and he had Crowley safe - somewhere - probably angry at him, but he’d resigned himself to that a long time ago. When Aziraphale understood the new conditions, and who he needed to sell his proposal to, what he needed would be at his fingertips. Somewhere in all of these events was to be found the perfect combination of evidence to present the perfect argument for, for whatever fate was most desirable among those available once the Kingdom was Come. Not rising, Crowley’d made himself clear on that point; but something better than the torments and annihilation that were all he could, at the moment, expect from either Heaven or Hell. It wouldn’t matter that Aziraphale would probably get all tongue-tied and make a hash of the argument, because Crowley’s own behavior and visible motivations would make the case _for_ him.

If the end result made Aziraphale himself look bad, well, so be it. He could just _imagine_ Gabriel’s face when he realized how much Aziraphale’s famous thwarting of the Serpent of Eden relied on Crowley’s susceptibility to the Thing Aziraphale could do with his eyes! If his own angelic weakness highlighted his demon’s moral strength and capacity to love, it served a good purpose. If the mercy that _must_ , that in any truly divine endgame inevitably _would_ , be given to Crowley could extend to Aziraphale, that would go a long way toward reconciling Crowley to accepting it, but Aziraphale couldn’t control outcomes, only prepare for contingencies, and the important thing, after preserving Earth, was preserving _Crowley._

Who, alas, could be counted on to destroy that prospect, given a chance, out of sheer contrariness. So he mustn't be given the chance.

Each code in the list sparked a treasured memory, even the most traumatic now tinged with hope in the context. Crowley teaching himself to bless, working with Aziraphale during plagues without being asked, mourning the son of God, hurting himself to help his adversary out of pure self-forgetful love (that night in the Blitz would melt a heart of stone!), even his most blasphemous questions springing from a powerful humanocentric moral sense; how could _anyone_ witness _any_ significant part of this, in the immediacy of the Akashic Records format, and not brim over with love and wonder for this complex, exasperating, perfect demon? It wasn’t _possible!_

For anyone except the Princes and Dark Council of Hell.

Crowley’s brilliant plan would absolutely, positively, infallibly work. They wouldn’t need a new heaven and a new earth, because the old one would keep ticking right along, like this old computer and his old coat and Crowley’s motor car. But Aziraphale would still need to make his pitch to some Heavenly authority - preferably not Gabriel, someone higher up, not normally concerned with Earthly matters - because, once his plan had foiled Armageddon, Crowley would desperately need sanctuary. A fact that never crossed his mind! Even _if_ he convinced his masters that raising the Antichrist to not be the Antichrist had been an ordinary failure rather than a betrayal of Hell’s goals, the penalty for failure didn’t bear thinking about. But, once understood, the plan all by itself should be enough to win him Heaven's protection. Aziraphale had _no_ doubt about that!

He did, however, have an appetite. He saved the file, closed it, powered down the computer, and considered where to go for dinner.

-30-


End file.
